[TUHS] The oldest user@host email on Unix

[TUHS] The oldest user@host email on Unix

[ron minnich via TUHS]

Around 50 years ago my Unix username was minnich. Once email became
internet aware, I was minnich@udel.

At some point, Mike Minnich appeared at Udel (my "pseudo brother" as he and
I put it), I left udel, and mminnich@udel and minnich@udel emails got
crossed, frequently. So about 42 years ago, I became rminnich.

Remembering this got me to wondering: what was that first email address, in
user@host form, on Unix?

[TUHS] Re: The oldest user@host email on Unix

[Lawrence Stewart via TUHS]

There are lots of email addresses of that form in the December 1978 Arpanet directory.
Many of them @RAND-UNIX @ILL-UNIX, @SRI-UNIX etc.

https://vtda.org/docs/computing/DefenceCommsAgency/ARAPNET_Directory_Dec78.pdf

The 1975 Arpanet directory lists a couple (two) systems which sometimes run Unix, but they don’t appear in the user part of the directory.

I’m listed in the ’78 directory as sysadmin of SU-ISL, which was an 11/34, later 11/45, running V6 and V7.
We were connected to the Arpanet as a VDH from SUMEX.  However, the directory shows my email as LY@SU-AI rather than SU-ISL.  I think we didn’t have email working on our own machine yet.

We got the net software from Rand, with the assistance of Steve Tepper. Prof. John Gill was pushing the Unix effort at ISL. He would also do fairly wacky things like hack the EPROMS in our cheap VDTs (Wyse? Hazeltine?) to make them usable with the Rand screen editor. 

-Larry

> On Oct 15, 2025, at 12:48 AM, ron minnich via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Around 50 years ago my Unix username was minnich. Once email became
> internet aware, I was minnich@udel.
> 
> At some point, Mike Minnich appeared at Udel (my "pseudo brother" as he and
> I put it), I left udel, and mminnich@udel and minnich@udel emails got
> crossed, frequently. So about 42 years ago, I became rminnich.
> 
> Remembering this got me to wondering: what was that first email address, in
> user@host form, on Unix?

[TUHS] Re: The oldest user@host email on Unix

[Lars Brinkhoff via TUHS]

Ron Minnich wrote:
> Remembering this got me to wondering: what was that first email address, in
> user@host form, on Unix?

Some systems used the "user at host" form.  That's atsign spelled out,
with whitespace arond.  For example "minsky at mit-ai".

[TUHS] Re: The oldest user@host email on Unix

[Jeff Johnson via TUHS]

The convention for intersystem mail that used '@' on Multics was “-at” (i.e. "mail user -at host").  This was done for convenience so as to not interfere with the default line kill character which was “@“.

--
Jeffrey H. Johnson
trnsz@pobox.com

On Wed, Oct 15, 2025, at 12:28 PM, Lars Brinkhoff via TUHS wrote:
> Ron Minnich wrote:
>> Remembering this got me to wondering: what was that first email address, in
>> user@host form, on Unix?
>
> Some systems used the "user at host" form.  That's atsign spelled out,
> with whitespace arond.  For example "minsky at mit-ai".